The Tree of Wooden Clogs

Infobox_Film
name = The Tree of Wooden Clogs


image_size = 150px
caption = original movie poster
imdb_id = 0077138
writer = Ermanno Olmi
starring = Luigi Ornaghi
Francesca Moriggi
Omar Brignoli
director = Ermanno Olmi
producer =
distributor =
released = flagicon|Italy September 21, 1978
flagicon|USA June 1, 1979
runtime = 186 min
language = Italian
budget =

"L'Albero degli zoccoli" is a 1978 Italian film written and directed by Ermanno Olmi. It was released as "The Tree of Wooden Clogs" in the USA and as "The Tree with the Wooden Clogs" in the UK. The film concerns Italian peasant life in the late 19th century. It has some similarities with the earlier Italian neorealist movement, in that it focuses on the lives of the poor, and the parts were played by real farmers and locals, rather than professional actors. It won fourteen awards including the Palme d'or at Cannes and the César Award for Best Foreign Film. The original version of the movie is spoken in Bergamasque, an Eastern Lombard dialect.

It includes footage of several real animal killings, including a pig being gutted while still partially alive.

Critical acclaim

British film-maker Mike Leigh praised the film in the Daily Telegraph newspaper’s ‘Film makers on film’ interview series, on 19th October, 2002. Leigh pays tribute to the film’s humanity, realism, and vast scale. He called the film “extraordinary on a number of levels”, before concluding “this guy's [Olmi] a genius, and that's all there is to it”. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2002/10/19/bffmof19.xml Film makers on film: Mike Leigh - Telegraph ] ]

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0077138|title=L'Albero degli zoccoli

###@@@KEY@@@###succession box
title=Palme d'Or
years=1978
before="Padre Padrone"
after="Apocalypse Now"
tied with "The Tin Drum"